Doctor Who_ Trading Futures Part 33

They were also watching things the press corps had no idea about. Three squadrons of USAF hypersonic jets had shown up heading north from the Gulf into Russia. The Americans had gone out of their way to make sure the EZ didn't know about them. The natural conclusion was that they would swing back west, into eastern Europe. But why only three squadrons?

The tacticians concluded that the Americans were launching a pre*emptive strike, one that no battle plans had allowed for.

And the President wasn't available. Even on the hotline.

Whatever was going on in Istanbul, Washington seemed to know nothing about it. The Vice President wasn't in charge, they insisted, the President was still in charge.

Deliberate confusion, the EZ security chiefs advised their ministers. Deniability. The ability to claim that whatever was happening wasn't happening with presidential approval.

There were two American fleets in the Mediterranean. One in the Gulf, one in the Atlantic. The EZ navy were outnumbered, even on their own doorstep. The Americans had a ring of missile bases in the Med, too. Smart missiles that could hit any point in Europe, pretty well before they could scramble interceptors.

Meanwhile, the rumours were that the Americans had at least some sort of laser anti*missile defence. Conventional strategic thinking was that you told your enemy about your defences, to deter them from attacking. But the EZ weren't the enemy of the Americans, not conventionally. Conventionally, you wouldn't start your attack on Europe by flying three squadrons into Russia.

The political leaders of the Eurozone agreed that it was all adding up to a sneak attack by the Americans. A few junior White House and defence department staff were vehemently denying it, the amba.s.sadors claimed not to know anything about it.

But the idea that the President had vanished was just ridiculous. Vanished where?

The situation now was critical.

For the Eurozone security advisers, it was simple. Either the Americans knew where the President was, and were launching a sneak attack, or there was confusion, possibly a critical power vacuum in the US chain of command.

Either way, there was only one sensible response for the Eurozone.

The Eurozone Council authorised an attack on United States forces in the Mediterranean and North Africa.

The deputy leader strode through the hangar, his warriors behind him.

In Terran gravity, they moved easily, almost skipping. This was a large chamber. The first location they had arrived at in the human structure had been appallingly cramped, and in the corridors they had had to move carefully, and in single file.

They had found a laboratory. There had only been room for two Onihrs, and a quick investigation revealed eleven dead human civilians.

'Killed by projectile weapons,' the scouts had told him. 'There is no evidence that these humans were armed.'

'There is more than one human faction at work here,' another had concluded.

'The only conclusion is that there is a rival group of humans who want the time machine.'

'This is a complex situation.'

The deputy leader nodded his agreement. 'Whoever killed these humans is clearly endeavouring to simplify matters.' He had studied his control box. 'We will teleport to the large hangar area, and ' they'd teleported then 'eradicate all humans.'

Before they'd drawn breath, they were under attack.

The bullets bounced off the Onihr armour, but the momentum was enough to knock the deputy leader off his feet in this perilously thin gravity.

He struggled back on to his knees. Their attackers were primitive robots, little more than mobile artillery pieces. Behind the robots, two small groups of humans were running in opposite directions.

The bullets kept coming. For such ineffective weapons, they were certainly efficient hundreds of projectiles had reached their target. None had even dented or scratched the armour.

The Onihr was on his feet, now.

A single shot sliced the nearest robot in half. It fell to the floor, still firing for a couple more seconds.

The next robot launched itself at the Onihr, clumsily charging.

A couple of shots from his cohorts disabled the machine. It clattered to the floor in bits. The other warriors took their time, striding up to the machine, pulling the casing off, tearing out the vital components with their bare hands.

The Onihr kicked at the remains. There was a chance that a lucky shot could injure an Onihr. A slim chance.

Anji was attacking the foam insert of the case.

Baskerville had left it behind in his hurry to get out of the crossfire. The Doctor had grabbed it as he and his companions had also beat a retreat. They were back out on the runway now.

The inside of the hangar was lit by the tanks and the aliens firing their weapons at each other. Every so often, a stray shot would speed out of the hangar door.

The Doctor and Anji were bent over the coffee machine like it was the most important thing on Earth.

'I enjoy my coffee,' Fitz said. 'But this is silly.'

'The time machine must be in here,' Anji explained.

The Doctor was more interested in the coffee jug. He sloshed the coffee around experimentally.

'Anji... it's odd for Baskerville to pay so much attention to a coffee machine in the first place. But this jug is half*full. Or half*empty, of course, depending on your outlook. The point is that it's still got the coffee in it.'

Anji looked up. That was odd. 'The first thing you'd do would be to empty the jug.'

'Indeed.'

The Doctor sniffed the coffee.

'So what does that mean?'

'It means the coffee's the important thing.'

'It's time*travelling coffee?'

The Doctor frowned. 'I doubt it, somehow. Jaxa and Roja couldn't pick up any signs there had been time travel. They thought it was because Baskerville was using good shielding, but have you still got that time detector?'

Anji handed it over. The Doctor waved it over the coffee machine, but there were no unusual readings.

'Doctor, I travelled in time. Cosgrove travelled in time.'

'But is there any physical evidence of that?'

Anji flashed her eyes at him triumphantly. 'What about the arrowhead?'

'Arrowhead?'

'In the case, there was that eleventh*century arrowhead. When Cosgrove went to the eleventh century, he picked up an arrowhead and brought it back.'

The Doctor thought for a moment. 'Simple enough to acquire either it's a very well*preserved original, or a modern reconstruction. Because it's metal, it's impossible to carbon date. If I was going to plant evidence, I couldn't pick a better thing to use.'

Anji's head was spinning. 'But I was there. I was in Brussels.'

'You had those side effects,' the Doctor reminded her.

'Yeah... it was disorientating. But I was there.'

'You thought you were.'

'I was there.'

'They convinced you that you were.'

'In a bare room? They took me into a bare room, then I was in Brussels. I didn't move from the room, but I was in Brussels.'

'Which is easier? Making someone a time traveller, or conning someone to think they've time travelled?'

'How, though? You might be able to do it with, I don't know, holograms, or something. But that's hi*tech, too they had a holographic TV on the plane to Athens and it was... well, it was rubbish. Blue and flickering. It's still future technology, so it's still evidence of time travel. I went into the sending chamber, then I was in Brussels.'

The Doctor tapped his lip. 'You've missed something.' He looked down at the coffee machine, just for a second.

'I had a cup of coffee.'

'You did.'

'OK... I've had plenty of cups of coffee in the past. None of them ever made me time travel.'

'No.'

'So why would this one?'

'Good question. What's the answer?'

Anji looked down at the coffee jug.

'There's something in the coffee that makes people who drink it travel in time?'

It seemed unlikely. But, frankly, running away from dinosaurs, talking to tigers and protecting the President of the United States from alien rhinoceroses seemed unlikely.

'No,' the Doctor said, 'time travelling coffee? That's utterly ridiculous. Think, Anji, think. What do you remember?'

'I was in Brussels. Right by the Manakin Pis. I remember seeing the Atomium, and '

'Wait. You were looking at the statue, but could also see the Atomium?'

'Er... yes.'

'Which isn't possible.'

'Well... no. And I sent my text message to Dave, and I was looking up at the Atomium, and thinking it looked like something out of Gerry Anderson, and suddenly the Atomium parted down the middle, the pavement was rolling slowly back, and there was a hangar below.'

The Doctor nodded. 'A hangar. Right. Then?'

'Hang on...' Anji said. 'There was a crack, like thunder, and then a rocket launched from the depths. That's... er... not possible, is it?'

'It's certainly a clue,' the Doctor said gently. 'Describe it.'

'It was about two hundred feet long, bright red, with a big white "3" on the side. It had stubby rocket pods at its base. None of the tourists even noticed. Perhaps it was an everyday occurrence there. That's what I thought.'

'Did you watch Thunderbirds Thunderbirds as a child?' the Doctor asked. 'You must have done, you're the same age as... well, I remember watching children's TV in the eighties and ' as a child?' the Doctor asked. 'You must have done, you're the same age as... well, I remember watching children's TV in the eighties and '

'Thunderbirds? It... it looked like Thunderbird Three.'

'Right down to the "3" on the side.'

'Yeah.'

'Didn't you find that a bit odd?'

'At the time... well... no, it all seemed to fit.'

'Because you were expecting it.'

'I wasn't expecting it. How could I?'

'You said it yourself: "it looked like something out of Gerry Anderson". You didn't travel back in time. You just thought you did.'

Anji looped a strand of hair back over her ear. 'It's not a time machine.'

'No.'

'But it makes people think it is.' She was stumped.

'It's a drug,' Fitz said offhandedly. 'There's something in the coffee that makes people think they're time*travelling. A hallucinogenic.'

The Doctor nodded. 'It has to be. Something that makes whoever drinks it very suggestible. Something that makes them see and hear things. Baskerville must be very skilled in directing that making people see what they want to see. And it must metabolise quickly. If you remember back to what he said, I bet you'll see he was carefully directing events. That's why you only get ten minutes in the past. A clever precaution it means that if anyone suspected they'd been drugged, there would be no sign of it in their system by the time they had a test.'

'It seemed so real.' But Anji was annoyed that Fitz got to the answer first, she wasn't arguing with the conclusion.

The Doctor nodded. 'By definition.'

'And it went wrong with me. Because I'm a time traveller because I was experienced, and too open*minded about what might happen.'